Wednesday, 31 March 2010

A liquid liner with felt tip applicator that lasts for ages and goes on very neatly and straight, you can make the line thick or thin easily too, and it’s not too expensive. This is my favourite liquid liner by far.

Bourjois Rouge Hi-TechA sheer, water-based lipstain that lasts for quite a while. It gives a wash of colour and doesn’t just come off straight away, it has quite a matte finish so probably not for glossy girls! For the price, the length of time it lasts and the range of colours, I think they’re an amazing buy. I’ve also seen them on another blog used as cheek stain and it looked pretty good when I tried it. I have a pink, a coral and an orange – annoyingly, the names aren’t on them now that they’re not in their packaging, though after a bit of researching I think they’re Cyber Cassis, Rose Pixel and Rouge Futuriste. Orange lips are meant to be in so I’ll be wearing that one!

What's your favourite Bourjois product? What do you think of the brand in general?

Friday, 26 March 2010

Since falling in love with Givenchy Vernis Please Bleu, and having my heart broken when I realised it didn’t come out until May, I decided to look for an alternative to it and stumbled upon OPI Teal The Cows Come Home. And I think that, from the pictures I’ve seen of Givenchy it looks pretty similar! It’s a lovely bright turquoise with a slight sprinkling of fine silver (?) glitter in it, giving it an almost-metallic look, you know that type of polish that OPI do really well. The pics here are of three coats, no top coat – after two coats there was still VNL but other than that, no application problems. The only thing I didn’t like was the smell, it almost smelled like burnt hair or plastic, not a smell I’ve ever come across in an OPI polish before?

In some pics I’ve seen of this it had a greeny tinge and it can look like that in dim lighting. A bit of sunlight though and it really pops a bright blue. The polish lasted 3 days before the dreaded tipwear began. All in all I really like this polish and can’t wait for summer in the vain hope that it will be sunny and bring the colour out!

Saturday, 20 March 2010

After seeing a blog post about these lipsticks on BritishBeautyBlogger, I wanted it solely based on the packaging. It’s black and looks quilted. I have a weird thing for quilted things so to combine lippy and quilting, phew I’m almost in heaven. And it has Revlon embossed onto the actually coloured part of the lipstick, bit fancy isn’t it?

Sorry, though it’s another bright pink lipstick! It doesn’t look much different to the Barry M colour (possibly a little more blue/purple based?) but feels much nicer once on and during application, the formulation is much more shiny and creamy and feels like it’s gliding onto lips smoothly rather than drying them out. Putting the Barry M pics side by side with the Revlon, they look SO similar! I expected the colour to be a bit more diluted than it was but it’s actually pretty pigmented. I think the sheeny finish with this gloss makes it a bit less in your face in person– I feel like I could wear this in the day more easily than Barry M.

For a creamy lippy, the transfer actually wasn’t too bad – I still had some lipstick on after eating, drinking etc though it was a bit faded. It stay on from about 8am-12pm which I don’t think is bad given how moisturising it feels. I like like like. The only thing that made me go “hmm?” about this lippy is that it has no real smell/taste to speak of – it just smells faintly..waxy? Creamy? And I can’t really like it less because of that, there’s no smell or issue there to make me not like it, I just thought it was a bit weird?

These haven’t been released in the UK just yet, I don’t think but I believe they’re on their way. And I’ll be stocking up!!

Monday, 15 March 2010

I've just copied this from the press release on their site (here: http://www.sweetsquared.com/News/say-hello-to-shellac) - from reading this and All Lacquered Up (who actually tried Shellac) it seems to be similar to natural nail overlays or gel nails without being a nightmare to remove or damaging your nails during application or removal. I'm interested to try this, but even more interested to see the colour range to see if there's any I actually would want to wear for 14 days plus!

CND (Creative Nail Design), the leader in professional nail, hand and foot beauty, is proud to introduce the first hybrid nail color after nearly five years of development in its state-of-the-art laboratory. Now you can say good-bye to chips, smudges, and dry time and say hello to Shellac™ Hybrid Nail Color! This revolutionary product applies like polish, wears flawlessly for 14 days of high gloss shine, and is removed in minutes.

Shellac paints on like polish - base coat, color, top coat - and is cured in a UV light so there is zero dry time. The colors are hypo-allergenic, and "3-Free" - no formaldehyde, toluene or DBP. Shellac will launch in a range of 12 varieties of shades, from pretty French pinks and whites, to siren red and rich darks. The formula is thin and flexible like polish, so it not only looks natural, it provides strong natural nail protection with a resilient mirror finish that resists dullness and chipping, even during the most rigorous activities.

As amazing as Shellac is on, removal is just as satisfying! No soaking, drilling or filing is necessary. Nails are wrapped in individual Shellac Remover Wraps -integrated cotton pads that limit finger and skin exposure to acetone by keeping it pinpointed on just the nail. Ten minutes of time in exchange for two weeks of perfect color is all it takes. Say good-bye to manicure frustration and hello to pure manicure satisfaction.

Shellac is a professional salon service launching globally in May 2010.

I’ve been using this for a while (as you may be able to tell by the fact that foundation/concealer on the lid, a sure sign of being carried around in my make up bag for a while!). It’s lasted me ages and there’s still loads left!

I bought it online after seeing it in a magazine without actually having any real idea of what it might be like. Luckily, I really like it – it looks a bit scary in the packaging, very bright with glitter, but it actually looks a nice natural flush on my skintone when applied sparingly and it actually isn’t all that glittery. If you are a bit heavy handed though, then prepare to look very pink/red.

I bought mine for about £5 all in from Ebay but I think it retails at somewhere more like £10 in the shops?

Wednesday, 10 March 2010

People seem to go crazy for Lush and I don’t really get why – yes it smells nice and looks pretty but it is actually quite expensive for what it is, markets itself as natural when it contains plenty of chemicals and some of it has a fairly short shelf life (yes fresh facemask, I MEAN YOU!). But saying all this, I’m always pleased if I get it for a gift or treat myself very occasionally….

So, at the top we’ve got:

Honey Trap Lip BalmThis stuff is LOVELY, it has a very sweet scent with a hint of mintiness and definitely moisturises. Apparently it’s vanilla, white chocolate and honey..mmmmmmmmm! The sweet smell of it is quite strong, whenever I use it at work the woman on the desk next to mine ( a good 5 feet away) sniffs the air and says "I just got a whiff of something really sweet-oh have you got your lipbalm out again?"

From left to right underneath we now have:

ButterballCocoa butter, sweet musk and vanilla bathbomb that smells fresh but sweet at the same time. Mmmm again!

Candy FluffAn egg ballistic that smells like candy floss and has a lickle flower in the top. Aah! I think this is probably just out for Easter which is a shame because it smells so nice and made my skin feel silky.

We went to look for a Mothers Day present for my boyfriends mam and found that if he bought a Mothers Day gift box he got a free goodie bag too, sadly he’s giving the goodie bag to his mam as well. BOOO!

There’s also a Mothers Day Tea Party thing happening at Lush on Sunday:

Saturday, 6 March 2010

Since I'm addicted to false lashes, I thought I'd do a bit of a compare and contrast on a few to see what I thought. I usually use the Mac ones in here but I thought I'd branch out.

First up...

Illamasqua (Dramatic - 017)

These were £12 and came with glue included. The blurb reads: “Long sweeping handmade lashes to widen the eyes” and in the packaging (which was also very pretty and dramatic), they looked lovely! Lashes could be stored after further use in this packaging.

Application of these was really difficult! The actual band the lashes are attached to is really thick and inflexible so trying to shape it to your lash line and make sure both corners stick isn’t easy.

However, I REALLY like the look of these lashes on, they were feathery and natural looking without looking too long or thin. The glue that it came with was your standard small bottle of lash glue (the same as with Models Own), nothing special.

They did stay on well and were pretty easy to remove though. You could use them again after removal.

I wasn’t hugely impressed with these – they looked nice but felt heavy, the lash glue was nothing impressive and they were hard to apply. For the price I would expect better but I suppose the premium price is because they’re handmade. I'd give them a 7 out of 10.

Next up....

Mac (7)

These cost £8.50 and don't include glue. The glue I used was Duo glue which is fabulous stuff but costs a futher £8ish for 14g, which does get you a lot of uses. It smells absolutely disgusting though! Blurb for these is "natural length, everyday glamorous". If only my lashes were this long naturally!

Like the packaging on these, typical Mac and good for storing your lashes after wear too (unlike cardboard containers.)

Easy to apply, lash band is invisible and easy to flex so not too blatant if it’s not perfect. They give a really nice wide-eyed look that doesn’t look too false and they don’t feel stiff or plastic.

These are my typical go-to false lashes for a night out, I love them, they suit me and using the Duo glue from Mac means they stay on all night and can be re-used if you take them off carefully.

Sorry lashes though, I think I’m going to have to mark you down for being £8.50 without any glue even though you can wear them again and again……..

I’ve repurchased these a lot and would again! I give 8.5 out of 10

And last, but not least (well, maybe)....

Models Own (Fashion Flare Lash 18)

These cost £5 and came with glue included.

Packaging was ok, nothing amazing, pretty similar to a lot of lashes on the high street.

Reasonably easy to apply, though these had the opposite problem to the Illamasqua lashes, the band was almost too flexible and it was hard to get the lashes to stay still/in one place during application. Once they were on I really didn't like them - they were very long and plastic/false looking. They stayed on ok (shame) and were easily removed.

Not worth buying in my opinion, for £5 you're probably better off buying some from the high street or off Ebay. I wouldn't repurchase. I give them 5 out of 10.

So, the winner is Mac, the eyelashes I buy again and again and again...why did I think I could do better?!

And thus it was sealed, I decided to buy Barry M Punky Pink and see what I thought. Now, as you can see from the pic below, I have quite full lips so tend to steer clear of bright shades because it makes me look like just a pout with legs and arms attached but this Barry M shade is gorgeous, it really suits me (if I say so myself) and even my boyfriend likes it! It goes on really well and lasts for ages - I really put it through its paces over the weekend, it survived a Pizza Express meal and a night out (two separate applications, I'm not that gross that I keep lipstick on for days.) without having to be reapplied! It can also be blotted down so it's not as bright, I do this for work and gloss added over the top, but this decreases its staying power.

My only criticism of this is that it is a little drying and if you have any dry skin on your lips, it will show it but tbh this is something that's easily sorted.

I bought mine from ASOS as I was putting an order in anyway and had a 20% off code so this lippy was actually only £3.40! I think the usual retail price is £4.25 which is still amazing for such a great product, I will definately be repurchasing!